In recent years, digital cameras (image sensing apparatuses) capable of photographing an image by a simple operation and converting the image into digital image data have widely been used. To print an image photographed by this camera and use the print as a photograph, the photographed digital image data is temporarily input from the digital camera to a PC (computer), and undergoes image processing by the PC. Then, the processed data is output from the PC to a color printer, which prints the data.
To the contrary, there have been developed color print systems capable of directly transferring digital image data from a digital camera to a color printer and printing the data without the mediacy of any PC, and so-called photo-direct (PD) printers capable of directly mounting in a color printer a memory card which is mounted in a digital camera and stores a sensed image, and printing the photographed image stored in the memory card.
Image data input to this photo-direct (PD) printer are data of various data formats including JPG data, BMP data, HTML data, and RGB data such as a television signal. As an interface for inputting such image data, various interfaces such as USB, IEEE 1394, and Bluetooth have been used. Under this circumstance, the demand has arisen for the advent of a photo-direct (PD) printer applicable to any interface or data format.